I · 5Experimental 16mm2019–20

Two short films shot on 16mm during a course in experimental filmmaking: Lens (2019) and Smith/9th Street (2020), named after the elevated subway station in Brooklyn.

They are close to the street photographs in every way but one: duration. The same distance, the same unstaged scenes, except now the scene keeps going. What a still would cut down to a single moment is left to run, and the waiting that normally happens behind the camera ends up on screen.

Neither film is edited. Smith/9th Street carries a soundtrack recorded separately as voice memos and laid under the footage. Music overheard, skateboards on pavement, footsteps: the sound of moving through the city, set against pictures of standing still in it.